2.24.2005

Illustration Friday: Sorrow

It's taken me practically forever to finally get around and find the time to actually work on a piece for Illustration Friday, and of course it's a heavy one. The theme is "sorrow," and although I probably have not gone through the exact same situation as the subject in my piece is going through, I've experienced grief and sorrow to some extent. Haven't we all? Quite a universal theme for our times, I would have to say.

What the heck Ward?! You post an illustration the week I don't. It's bad enough that this is a damn fine illustration. Love the choice of colors and the textures... but still, take it easy on me man; You're making me look bad. ;)

Great stuff as always. You really don't post your work as often as you should.

You're right, I didn't think about that. It is quite a jump from complete joy in Ava's drawing to utter dispair in my illustration. I'll do my best to keep that from happening in the near future, I swear!

Thank you all for the nice compliments. Today's been a downer day because of Ava having to go to the doctor for a nasty ear infection. That and my sinus infection has started up again. Sheesh. So, uh, yeah...thanks.

re: 'Sorrow'...great illustration. Traditional media, or digital(it's difficult to tell, which is meant as a compliment!). It really conveys the feeling of helplessness and utter despair. Very well done.

Great picture, it really captures the atmosphere. For some reason it reminds me of my student days... Probably due to the fact that I'd normally wake up feeling sorry for myself from a heavy nights drinking and have a picture of me doing something bizarre.

Great work Ward! How do you draw them in Photoshop, do you scan them in and redraw them or do you use a digital sketch pad thing?

Thank you for the compliments. To Stu Jones: for this image I actually drew it in the computer with a Wacom tablet and stylus. Just started sketching, seeing where it would take me. I then "painted" it with a couple of Photoshop brushes that resembled pastel chalk, like I mentioned earlier.

I don't normally work this way. Sometimes I'll draw with pencil or pen on paper and scan the image in, delete the white areas surrounding the pencil marks, and then color in Photoshop on another layer. You can see one of these images in an earlier post HERE. You can't recreate that sketchy, rough pencil look in the computer. I like that look better sometimes.